How does job-protected maternity leave affect mothers' employment and infant health? / Michael Baker, Kevin Milligan.
| Author/creator | Baker, Michael, 1959- |
| Other author | Milligan, Kevin. |
| Other author | National Bureau of Economic Research. |
| Format | Electronic |
| Publication Info | Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, |
| Supplemental Content | Full text available from NBER Working Papers |
| Subjects |
| Series | NBER working paper series ; working paper 11135 Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ; working paper no. 11135. UNAUTHORIZED |
| Summary | "Maternity leaves can affect mothers' and infants' welfare if they first affect the amount of time working women stay at home post birth. We provide new evidence of the labor supply effects of these leaves from an analysis of the introduction and expansion of job-protected maternity leave in Canada. The substantial variation in leave entitlements across mothers by time and space is likely exogenous to their unobserved characteristics. This is important because unobserved heterogeneity correlated with leave entitlement potentially biases many previous studies of this topic. We find that modest mandates of 17-18 weeks do not increase the time mothers spend at home. The physical demands of birth and private arrangements appear to render short mandates redundant. These mandates do, however, decrease the proportion of women quitting their jobs, increase leave taking, and increase the proportion returning to their pre-birth employers. In contrast, we find that expansions of job-protected leaves to lengths up to 70 weeks do increase the time spent at home (as well as leave-taking and job continuity). We also examine whether this increase in time at home affects infant health, finding no evidence of an effect on the incidence of low birth weight or infant mortality"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site. |
| General note | Title from PDF file as viewed on 2/24/2005. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references. |
| Access restriction | Available only to authorized users. |
| Other forms | Also available in print. |
| Technical details | Mode of access: World Wide Web |
| Genre/form | Electronic books. |
| LCCN | 2005616721 |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic Resources | Access Content Online | ✔ Available |